Featured Alpaca
When I saw Karma, our beautiful gray mom delivering this little beauty, I could see that we had another great looking gray on the way, but I didn't think we'd be lucky enough to have it be a girl! Her gray fleece is almost blue and she has attracted attention from visitors since she arrived. Jasmine is full of spunk, leads the cria races most evenings and combines gray genetics from 3 of our best gray alpacas. Patagonia's Aysen ( her sire) Lola's Zhivago ( her grandad) and Karma, her mom. Jasmine will be offered for sale for a limited time at $8000 to include one full year of boarding at BMR. Terms available, please contact us soon if you are interested!
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Open Barn Days a Great Success!
Wow!! What a weekend we had here on Sept 26 & 27. This is the 5th year we have opened our doors to the public on the last weekend in September. Yes, we did it even before National Alpaca Farm Days! At first we called it our Fall Open House, but then people expected tours of the house!! So it became "Open Barn Days" was created. We were pretty pleased when AOBA declared National Alpaca Farm days to be the last weekend in September too!
We guesstimate we had between 400 and 500 people visit the ranch over the weekend. It was a little overwhelming at times, but we were so pleased to see the crowds! At one point I walked to a pasture to let the chickens out of the coop and gasped as I saw cars parked all the way up and down the street - plus our driveway had been turned in to a huge parking lot. We had spinning and carding demos, beautiful raw fleece to examine and many wonderful alpaca items for sale.  Our hand made soaps were also a big hit, especially the ones wrapped in alpaca fiber! Then everyone wanted to see the alpacas and we had our wonderful "tour guides" to help with that too.
We have even bigger and better plans for our next Open Barn Days in September 2010 , so be sure to put it on your calender and join us if you can.
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Spinning or knitting class?
It seems there might be some interest in a spinning or knitting class and we are happy to organize one if we have enough interest. You know you don't have to own alpacas to enjoy working with their fleece! If either spinning or knitting intrigues you, wouldn't fall be a great time to learn a new fiber skill before winter really sets in? Send an email to me at linda@bluemoonranch.net and tell me what your interests are, what days you might be available and we will put a class together if we get enough participants.
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 Twitter? When my nephew Zachary first told me that I really needed to be on Twitter, my first thoughts were, No, I don't need another thing to keep me spending any more time at the computer, plus I don't care what most people have for lunch and I prefer my social life to be with real live people! But because I like to try things, and because my nephew was so enthusiastic, I decided to give Twitter a 30 day trial.
Fast forward 6 months later and I think I get it! I don't tweet all that much compared to some, but I do check in daily and I have made friends, sold fiber and yarn and have learned quite a bit from other alpaca people! I announced all the cria births on twitter as they happened and have shared some fun alpaca photos with my followers.
You get to know people in a very informal setting, see how they think (and I guess even what they eat if they share that too). Some people I follow seem to complain about everything, and some can always look at the positive side of an issue, and guess who I'd rather talk to and do business with?
 Some people are only on twitter to sell stuff, and I stop following them pretty quickly. There will be spam - just delete it, but all in all it is one new tool in the social networking toolbox that I am enjoying! Thanks Zachary!
Anyway, if you care to figure it out, you can read a few Twitter tutorials, follow people who share your interests and then say hi to @bluemoonranch if you start to tweet!
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Weaning the Babies
 Every year one of questions I hear most often is "When do you wean the babies?" Well, that is one job I have delegated to the mom of each baby! In the beginning, I was told "Wean them at 6 months" And so I did. Babies crying on one one side of the fence, moms pacing and crying on the other side, with me feeling so sad up at the house watching. I happened to read an article by Cathy Spalding called "Whose Baby is this Anyway?" about the natural method of weaning and it made so much sense!! For many years now we have let the moms wean their own babies and it fits in beautifully with our "no stress" policy of raising alpacas.
When mama alpaca says to baby alpaca "No More Milk  Kiddo!", it is very clear to the cria what she means and eventually the cria stops trying, mom's milk dries up naturally and mom and weanling can still hang out together because that is what they like to do. If you want to try natural weaning and have any question about your particular circumstances, please email me, I'd be happy to "chat" with you.
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Tip of the Month: A hanging feeder or two can greatly reduce  stress when feeding many animals indoors in inclement weather. If you have screaming or spitting, you need more space between feeders - not necessarily more hay! We have found these inexpensive hanging feeders makes dinner time in the barn quiet and enjoyable for everyone! They are available at most feed stores. | |
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